The Revolution Side Project That Could Become One of the Best Midfielders in MLS

"He's a very talented African player, one of the best players coming out of Uganda."

Photo Courtesy of New England Revolution

Allan Oyirwoth is a departure from the New England Revolution transfer strategy.

While New England has developed young players from within the United States, the club hasn’t focused on acquiring young talent from abroad and developing them within the club.

Now with Caleb Porter at the helm, the club is making a concerted effort to get younger. In 2024 the roster had an average of 27.4. Prior to the addition of Max Urruti, the average age of the current roster was 24.6.

“You can see we got a lot younger,” the head coach said. “I believe that to play the way that I want to play, and the way that I think is the best way to play, to win games and to hopefully be a contender, I have obviously evidence of that and two teams that have done it and those teams, they trained hard. We had some senior players, for sure, but we also had a nice blend of youth as well. The way that I like to play is there's an intensity to it on both sides of the ball, and we need guys that are athletic and we need guys that are fit. So, we felt like again with some of the maturity we had in the team in the past, that we needed to get younger and inject some players that were younger, developmental players, some players that were reaching the prime, and a lot of players that are in the prime, meaning they're experienced, but also they're physically still capable of running, working, and training hard.

Oyirwoth doesn’t have a lot of professional experience to his name. He has been capped by Uganda at the international level but spent the majority of his time playing at the college level in the African nation.

That isn’t to say he wasn’t successful.

He was named the Teso Zone MVP in March 2023 after leading the goal-scoring charts in the zonal school competition. In May, he finished as the top scorer and earned MVP honors at the USSSA National Football Championship, a 64-school tournament.

The Blazing Musket asked Porter about the youngster and Porter admitted that the acquisition is more about the long-term than Oyirwoth making an immediate impact. Still, the head coach believes that the Ugandan’s potential is through the roof and has the possibility to rise through the ranks quicker than expected.

“Allan [Oyirwoth] was a player that we added as a developmental player,” Porter said. “In some ways it's kind of a little side project for us. He's a very talented African player, one of the best players coming out of Uganda. I've done well with African players and we felt like this was a guy that could eventually become one of the better midfielders in the league with a couple years to develop, instead of getting a guy at 20 or 21 [years old], we get a young player from overseas that's maybe a little ahead technically and athletically than some of the young players that we have even in our pathway. Then from there, develop the mental and the tactical. He’ll get a lot of games with Revs II. Again, he's young and a bit raw. But can he eventually become a really special kind of player? That was the thought behind adding him, and who knows, maybe he surprises us, and he's ready to play with the first team football, in games a little bit sooner than we think.”

It will be interesting to see how Oyirwoth develops. With his ability to find the back of the net along with his ability on the ball, he could serve as a depth option at the No. 10 position.

While Carles Gil has the position on lock, he is 32 years old. New England needs to start thinking about the future of the position and outside of Jack Panayotou, there are no clear options who are ready to take over that role. If Oyirwoth can develop with Revs II and progress to the first team, maybe he can one day be the captain’s replacement.

So while it is worth remembering that he is not even 18 years old, Porter and co. seem to believe that the midfielder has the potential to be a key player for New England in the future.